Iron Axe

by Steven Harper

  “Huh. I thought you were brave when you faced down the wyrm,” Talfi said. “That was … I have no words.”

  Danr shrugged. “Maybe trolls are too stupid to be afraid.”

  “That sounds about right, monster,” said Anders behind them.

  Talfi rounded on him. One of the chickens fled in an explosion of feathers. “Who the hell are you?”

  “This is my house.” Anders, a stocky, brown-haired man, looked pale and unhappy. “Two draugr and a troll at my home in one day. Now there’s talk of witches. I’m cursed.”

  “Because everything centers on you,” Talfi said before Danr could respond. “You’ve a healthy mind, Carl This-Is-My-House.” In the distance came more shouts and screams. Some kind of fuss was going on where Danr couldn’t see, though his vision had never been strong in sunlight, even with his hat on. “I didn’t think draugr came out in the daytime.”

  “Neither do trolls,” Anders pointed out.

  Danr hunched over and pulled himself down to Anders’s level. The man looked a lot smaller in the day, alone, with empty hands. Danr wanted to say something to Anders about last night, how the man had come for him with a long, heavy rope fitted for a troll’s neck. The monster inside grumbled. Danr’s fists clenched, and Anders backed up a step. One flick of the monster’s finger. One poke with his fist …

  Keep the monster inside, Mother’s voice murmured in his ear. Don’t give him the satisfaction.

  Danr forced himself to relax his hands, and he touched the pouch at his throat. The splinters inside pricked his fingertips with further reminders. “What do you think the spirits want?” he asked instead.

  “We’ll find out soon enough.” Anders summoned up some courage of his own and snuck a glance at the empty village circle. “By the Nine! The draugr have gone! And the corpses, too! The witch must have magicked them away.”

  “What witch? What do you mean we’ll find out what the spirits want?” Danr asked.

  “White Halli caught the witch who summoned them.”

  Cold blood sliced Danr’s veins. He knew the answer, but still he had to ask the awful question. “Who’s the witch?”

  The words hit him like stones from a hundred slings. “That slave girl. Everyone knows her healing powers can call up the dead.” Anders was still peering around the corner. “Halli blundered right into her when he was running away from the spirits. He grabbed her and dragged her to Farek’s house for beating until she tells us how to—”

  Danr rushed past Anders, leaving the startled Talfi behind. Heart in his mouth, he bolted across the empty village circle to Farek’s house. The fuss he had heard earlier was coming from behind it. Panic nipped at his ribs. He tore around the rear corner to the sheltered courtyard made by the L shape of the stable and main house. A smelly pigpen stood to one side, and more chickens perched on the railing, creating a strange audience. In the center of a crowd of people were White Halli and his two guards. Halli was raising a thin rod, one that would flay skin and slice meat. Aisa huddled at Halli’s feet. Two stripes tore open the rags across her ribs and made terrible red marks on her exposed brown back. It felt as if his own flesh lay scored.

  Hot anger slammed through Danr. His control snapped and the monster exploded forth. For the first time in more than ten years, a roar burst from his throat and shook the house walls. The people, men and women both, screamed just as they had for the draugr and scrambled to get out of the way, but not fast enough. Danr lumbered forward, sweeping them out of the way with his oak tree arms. They tumbled aside like ninepins. Aisa looked up.

  Do not show them the monster, said his mother’s desperate voice. Do not—

  Danr ignored her. He barreled straight for White Halli. The guards had the presence of mind to draw their swords. Danr knocked the first man’s weapon arm aside with a wet snap of bone. The sword spun into the pigpen and the man screamed in pain. Danr punched the second man in his leathery breastplate with the heel of his hand. The man arced backward into a group of people and went down in a tangle of arms and legs. Halli tried to draw his own sword, but Danr grabbed him by the throat and lifted him bodily off the ground. Unshaven skin scratched Danr’s hand and he smelled both herring and fear on Halli’s breath. Halli clutched at Danr’s arm with both hands, but his whole strength was nothing compared to half a troll. Aisa crawled several paces away, and the sight of her on hands and knees only enraged Danr further.

  “Keep back,” Danr snarled at the first guard, who was trying to draw a knife despite his broken arm, “or I’ll snap his neck.”

  “Drop me, half-blood,” Halli growled.

  Do not show them the monster, Mother begged. The crowd had withdrawn to a safe distance but hadn’t fled entirely. A tiny bit of control stole back. Danr thought of Norbert’s arm. He spoke.

  “Tell them she’s not a witch, Halli,” he said. “Tell them now.”

  Halli managed a choked laugh. “Walk away now, Trollboy, and you’ll only lose one ball instead of both.”

  Do not, Mother said.

  Danr wavered. Even if Halli recanted his accusation, the rumors would persist. Eventually someone would accuse her again. And Danr was in trouble for laying hands on the son of an earl.

  Aisa got unsteadily to her feet and tried to gather her rags about her, but they were cut in the back, revealing red welts on brown skin. A hot snake of anger twisted inside Danr, and he nearly snapped Halli’s neck right then. He squeezed a little tighter. Halli’s eyes bulged. Then Aisa’s eyes met his, and she gave a quick shake of her head.

  That did it. He couldn’t show the monster to Aisa. Slowly, with trembling hand, he lowered Halli to the ground and released him. Halli grimaced and massaged his neck, his white-blond hair shining silver in the sunlight.

  “Better,” he rasped, and straightened. “And you have to pay for that, Trollboy.”

  Danr set his jaw hard and stared at nothing. He didn’t care. He wouldn’t care. As long as Aisa was safe, nothing else mattered.

  “In fact,” Halli continued, “I’ll give you a choice of punishment. I’ll even show you mercy. Would you like that, Trollboy?”

  Danr kept his gaze on the horizon. His chest heaved. He didn’t want to look down and see Aisa, bleeding in the mud. He was afraid he would lose control again.

  Halli’s voice grew harsh. “Answer me, thrall. Would you like that? Would you like me to show you mercy?”

  The crowd stared, every eye round and hard. Danr’s face burned. Halli was setting a trap, he knew that, but there was only one answer he could give, so he gave it. “Yes, my lord.”

  “Very well. Listen carefully, if there’s a brain in that stone skull of yours.” Halli crossed his arms. “You can become my personal thrall for life. Or you can be freed of your bond forever—if you first beat the witch bloody and make her confess.”

  A murmur went through the crowd that hemmed them in. Still on the ground a few paces away, Aisa gave a gasp behind the scarf covering her face. Halli put the cane in Trollboy’s hand with a small smile.

  “Go ahead, Trollboy,” Halli said. “Make her bleed until she confesses, and I’ll release you from Alfgeir Oxbreeder. I swear before all these witnesses, you’ll be a thrall no more.”

  Aisa’s dark eyes met Danr’s again. She was trapped, and they both knew it. Anyone accused of witchcraft took nine strokes with a cane. If that didn’t bring a confession, the accused was caned to death. But anyone who did confess was branded on face and hands, and hanged from an ash tree. Or beheaded.

  He’s already killed me, said Aisa’s eyes. Take your freedom from it.

  A long future stretched ahead of Danr, flat and bleak. He stared at Halli, and Halli stared back. Aisa begged with her eyes. Get it over with, they said silently. Better you than him.

  Danr snapped the cane. The crowd rippled.

  “You’re a coward, Halli,” Danr said. “She’s no witch. Those pigs have more honor than you.”

  “A pig would know.” Halli made a great show of sigh
ing and gestured to his two guards. The second was only now getting to his feet after Danr had knocked him across the yard. The first was still cradling his arm. “Take the witch to Skyford keep for caning and execution. Then draw up a bill of sale from the earl for this new thrall of mine.”

  The second guard yanked Aisa to her feet, and Danr’s mouth fell open. “What are you doing?” he shouted.

  “Making the choice you refused,” Halli said reasonably. “For attacking me, you will be my thrall for life. And for the heinous crime of witchcraft, this slave bitch is—”

  Danr exploded like an angry volcano. He punched Halli in the stomach, and Halli folded around Danr’s fist with an “oof.” Danr brought his hand up and cracked Halli on the underside of the jaw. Every insult, every slight, every taunt, every jeer boiled out of him. The monster bellowed his fantastic rage and smashed Halli in the shoulder, slammed him to the ground, kicked him in the ribs. He felt the impact of every hit beneath his hands and feet. He heard the crunch of bone. A lifetime of wrath and injustice boiled around him in a dreadful thundercloud as the punches and kicks fell like hail. Halli dropped to the ground, bleeding and bruised. Danr was only vaguely aware of the crowd around him. He punched Halli hard in the temple. Halli stiffened and went limp. Danr raised both his hands, boulder-hard and mountain-heavy, high above his head. His fists hung there for a moment—

  Don’t! said his mother.

  Aisa cried out, and Danr brought them both down toward White Halli’s skull.

  Pain exploded behind Danr’s left ear. All his muscles went limp and he staggered. The second guard swung the shovel again. Danr dully watched it coming. Another explosion of pain, and the world slid into darkness.

  *

  The trial was short. Danr stood in a circle of spears thrust point-down into the ground with iron shackles weighing down his wrists and ankles. Outside the circle on a small platform stood Halli’s father, Earl Hunin. Like Halli, he was tall and blond, but his hairline had receded, and his blue eyes were watery. A silver coronet circled his brow, and he wore a heavy blue tunic embroidered with silver eagles. Danr’s eyes traced the eagle designs. The morning’s anger had evaporated, replaced by a leaden resignation that weighed him down more than the shackles. How much would the villagers laugh when Trollboy’s head rolled across the grass?

  How much would Aisa cry?

  He tried to picture Aisa weeping over his corpse, but the image wouldn’t come. She had disappeared during the confusion of his attack on Halli and his arrest afterward. She would never guess his name now. No one would. He was seized with a desire to shout his name aloud so everyone would at least know that much about him, but he kept quiet.

  Danr had crippled a man. He had intended to kill him.

  Halli was propped up in a bed a few paces behind his father, the earl. He wore a splint on his left leg and right arm. His face was a purple mess. But the worst was his eyes. One was swollen and shut. The other was open and glassy. It saw nothing. Halli didn’t respond to anything: not food, not drink, not even the voice of his son, Rudin. The little boy sat on the edge of the bed with Halli’s hand in his own. The healer in Skytown had said the blow to Halli’s temple had driven away his wits, and it was doubtful they would ever return.

  Now that the haze of anger had cleared, the awful memory of what Danr had done clung to him like the blood that still stained his tunic. He felt ready to throw up at any moment. It wasn’t fair that he felt this way. Halli was, in his own way, a bigger monster than Danr. He had bullied Danr all his life, tortured his own cousin Sigrid, thrown dozens and dozens of innocent men into prison, and worst of all, tried to put Aisa to the witch’s cane and rope. But now Halli’s little boy hovered like one of the draugr at the edge of Halli’s sickbed, and with that came the heavy knowledge that it was because of Danr’s own self. The chains he wore felt light in comparison.

  On Earl Hunin’s left was a priest to Urko, the god who had been cut in half by the Stane as a traitor during their war with the Nine Gods. Mother had told Danr a number of stories about how half of Urko lived with the Nine, and half of him with the Stane, and how both sides thought he spied for the other. Strangely his sacrifice came to associate him with law and justice, as someone who could weigh both sides of every argument, and his priests attended major trials as advisers, witnesses, and occasionally judges. Danr didn’t know this priest, but he recognized the strange hooded robe—left half black, right half white. The priest kept an elaborate walking stick at his right side, a symbol of Ashkame, the Great Tree. His face was hidden by the hood, and Danr couldn’t read the man’s expression, or even tell if he were looking at Danr at all.

  Talfi stood at the forefront of the crowd of villagers. His expression was at once angry and helpless. Danr hated appearing in front of his only friend in shackles like an animal. Alfgeir watched from the back with a stony expression. No matter how this went, he was losing Danr as a thrall.

  The rest of the villagers were gathered around as well, their faces ranging from angry to curious to frightened. Few were actually sorry that Danr had beaten White Halli into a stupor, but a trial was a show, and no one wanted to miss a moment. They were on a meadow some distance outside of the village, well away from the two draugr hovering in the ash grove and the one behind the pigpen. Neither of the ghosts showed any signs of moving. After the trial, the priest of Urko would try to drive them out. Whispers floated around the village that they wanted revenge for their deaths, and the execution of that troll boy might send the draugr away, especially the one that had once been White Halli. Danr pulled into himself at the thought. His head ached, both from the blows he had taken and from being out in the sun for so long without his hat. At least Aisa was safe.

  “We’ve heard the evidence,” said Hunin. His face was a stone, but his eyes were red, and he refused to look in Danr’s direction. His fingers twitched, and he stank of sweat even from this distance.

  The priest intoned, “The Nine find it inappropriate for the father to pass sentence when his son is the victim.”

  “There is no one else,” Hunin snapped.

  “It still must be noted.”

  “Noted, then.” Hunin’s voice was level as a grave. “The normal sentence for … injury is for the earl to decide how much the victim has … ” Here, Hunin’s voice quavered. “… has lost. The criminal must pay that amount to the family, or labor for them until the debt is paid.”

  Danr swallowed. The debt for White Halli would be high, probably more than Danr could ever work off in a single lifetime. He would be a thrall to Earl Hunin for the rest of his life. The thought of spending years—decades—in the keep under the thumb of a man who probably wanted him dead made his jaw tight and his heart pound at the back of his throat. The earl might order him beaten every day, or branded with hot irons, or sliced with thin knives.

  “However,” the earl continued, “the law also demands that injured party’s wishes be considered in the sentence. As the injured party, I wish to see this troll’s head and hands nailed to my doorpost.”

  Danr swayed dizzily and bitter bile piled up behind his tongue.

  “Deliberately executing one of the Stane could be seen as an act of war, my brother,” said the priest.

  “They executed two of ours!” Hunin shot back. “Three now! My son …” His voice broke again. “My son is all but dead because of that stone filth up the mountain. Why shouldn’t we go to war? We could take the land they’ve held for centuries and selfishly refused to let us use. We Kin could become a more powerful presence in Balsia.”

  Danr’s ears pricked up. It sounded like an old argument between brothers, though it was the first time Danr had ever heard of it. Something more was going on here, something he had never seen or understood. Danr felt abruptly small and stupid, like a hnefatfl piece who didn’t even know it was in a game. Was it possible Hunin was using Danr only as an excuse to go to war against the Stane? Was his grief nothing more than theatrics?

  “The Noss b
rothers tried to farm land that butts up close to the trolls,” the priest replied from beneath his bicolored hood. “The priesthood can’t condone going to war over a few hectares of disputed land.”

  “And over my son!”

  “The defendant was brave!” Talfi called out. “He defeated a wyrm! He took the first two draugr out of the village! He stood up to White Halli’s false accusations! No one else has done such things!”

  On the bed, White Halli stirred. His good leg quivered and he turned his head just a little. Danr started to say something, but Rudin also noticed the change. Hope dawned on his face. The boy grabbed Halli’s hand again and mouthed, Papa. Halli’s remaining eye blinked once, then fixed in the distance again. Rudin hung his head. Danr’s words died.

  “These actions do not excuse crimes!” Hunin barked, not noticing the exchange behind him. “The troll boy deserves only death!”

  “Tread carefully, brother,” said the priest. “Choosing death only leads to more death. How many other fathers will grieve for their lost sons if you make the wrong decision?”

  Rudin spoke from the bed. His face was hard, more adult than a little boy’s should have been. “If a half-blood thrall hurt my papa,” he said, “he should die. It is only fair.”

  The crowd followed this argument with hungry attention. The last few days had provided more entertainment than the past ten years. Danr stood in his shackles with sunlight pain squeezing his head and waited. Sixteen years as a thrall was all the life he was going to get. The earl closed his eyes for a long moment and the entire crowd stopped breathing.

  “The penalty for a man who lays hands on nobility is to become a thrall for the victim’s family,” Hunin said. “However, given that Trollboy is not a man, we must impose a stiffer penalty. I call for his death.”